Traumatic Events III: Unconscious Memories
by Forlay
Summary: Another Animorph's therapy session.


#  Traumatic Events III: Unconscious Memories

##  By: Forlay

How long is he going to take in there? The woman demanded silently as she stared at the doctor's closed door, willing it to open and admit her in to her session. The doctor's last patient had ended her session ten minutes ago, and there was never more than five minutes between sessions. She was beginning to grow impatient. She had to get home as soon as possible, she'd left her husband back home severely depressed. However, he told her to go to her session, knowing that she had to to recover. So she'd gone reluctantly, promising not to be late, but if the doctor never let her in there wasn't much she could do about that, now could she?   
"Cassie?" Doctor Greenway asked, poking his head into the waiting room, searching for Cassie. "Hey, Cassie, you can come in now." Cassie nodded then hurried into the office.   
"Can we cut this kind of short today?" Cassie asked, sitting down on the couch, "Jake's at home and I think he may have forgotten to take his medication yesterday because he's really depressed."   
"Of course, I understand. It may not be Jake's medication, just so you know. It's nearly winter, and for people with depression, that could easily heighten it. And he may have SAD, you ever hear of that?" She shook her head. "It's Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder. Basically, the winter months bring depression for some people. But that's not what we're here to talk about, I can talk to him about that later. What I did want to talk about was the last therapy meeting, if you wouldn't mind."   
"Sure. What about it?"   
"Just your thoughts on it. Anything that you think went extremely well or that went horrible?"   
"Rachel."   
"What about her?"   
"It went horrible because of her."   
"Why do you say that?"   
"I guess it wasn't all Rachel, it was me, too. And Tobias. And Marco. I think Jake's the only one who didn't have a problem of some kind with her. Tobias has this whole 'don't trust anybody' thing going on ever since he and Rachel split, Marco's paranoia, that used to be helpful, is now full blown PTSD, and then there's me with my memory loss. Rachel and I were best friends and now I can't remember one damn thing we did together!" she slammed her hands on the couch beside her to emphasize her point.   
"And Rachel didn't help much either, going totally psycho when just asked if she had anything to share."   
Doctor Greenway tried to keep the surprise from registering on his face. He knew the amnesia was frustrating to his usually passive young patient, it was frustrating for anybody, but he had never seen her get quite this worked up over it. It must have been the shock of seeing Rachel again, and the fact that she'd been completely blocked out of Cassie's life.   
"Do you have any idea why Rachel might have reacted that way?"   
Cassie shook her head, defeated. "I don't remember anything about her. Now that I think about it, I remember I had a maid of honor at my wedding, but I can't remember any details about her. She's just a blur." That's not the truth, she told herself silently. You remember something, more than a blur, anyways.   
"Are you sure, Cassie?" the doctor pressed, sure Cassie was hiding something.   
"Okay, I kind of remember something...but it's not much to go on."   
"What is it."   
"The girl had a temper. An extremely violent temper. I suppose that's why she helped us so much."   
"And possibly why you don't remember much about her?"   
Cassie gave Doctor Greenway a confused look. "What do you mean?"   
"Rachel did some things while she was an Animorph as the result of her temper that would make even the most ruthless murderer cringe. I can't say for certain all that she did, it wouldn't be my place to, anyways, but your memory lapse isn't all that surprising, nor is your frustration."   
"But what can I do about it? I know that Rachel obviously had to have done some pretty awful things, but it's driving me crazy not being able to remember. I can handle not remembering being an Animorph, I am more than happy with that since I don't want to remember all that I did, and maybe I don't want to remember what Rachel did, either, but I don't want to forget the good times we must have had together in order to be best friends."   
"Well, Cassie, yours is a unique case. I've never known someone to so completely block another person from her life. In most amnesia cases, the old television cliché is true, be in familiar surroundings as much as possible and hope for the best. With you, I don't think you can recreate the surroundings you were in as a teenager, but perhaps hang out with Rachel more. I can tell you that she is going through some hard times adjusting, too, and could use a friend now, possibly more than ever before."   
Cassie looked uneasy. Could she do it? Whenever she remembered something...less than pleasant, the memory asserted itself so forcefully she could hardly get it out of her mind, causing nights of insomnia. Spending so much time with a person she'd forgotten, it was practically a guarantee those memories would come back, which she wanted and didn't want. She wanted good memories with Rachel, but if she remembered the time they spent as Animorphs the memories could come flooding back all at once, overwhelming Cassie.   
"What if it doesn't work?"   
Doctor Greenway shrugged. "Then you've lost nothing, and neither has she. In fact, you'll have both gained a friend."   
"Um, well, then I guess I'll call her sometime," Cassie said evasively. She wanted to hang out with Rachel, she really did, but she wasn't sure if she was ready for those memories yet. In her mind, she just met the woman two days ago, wasn't becoming best friends, even if they had been before, rushing it a little?   
"Sometime soon, I hope, but that's entirely between you and Rachel."   
"Yeah..."   
Doctor Greenway looked through his notes from the group meeting. "At the meeting you said you remembered the basic details about the night you and the others got the morphing power, correct?"   
"Yes, that's right."   
"Did you have insomnia for the next couple of days?"   
Cassie shook her head. "No. It wasn't all that bad of a memory...just sort of disconcerting. When I remembered it, there was a shadow of a fifth person with us. At the time, I didn't remember Rachel, so I thought I was imagining things. It was in a dream, and you know how weird those can be."   
"Did you tell Jake about that?"   
"No way. I thought I was nuts, there was no way I was going to add the burden of an insane wife on him."   
"Burden?"   
"Yeah. He has enough on his mind as it is. His depression, work, me with my amnesia, and the fact that we don't have any kids. He's convinced it's a failure on his part, which it most certainly isn't."   
"Then what do you think it is?"   
"Stress. I've been reading up on the subject on the internet, and there's research proving that stress can be linked to a harder time getting pregnant. And stress is something that he and I have in abundance. Besides, I don't really want kids yet. They would grow up hearing about what heroes their parents were, yet their mother wouldn't be able to tell them a single thing. Not because she didn't want them to know, but because she couldn't remember anything."   
"That seems reasonable. Have you talked to Jake about it?"   
"Yes, but I'm not sure if he really understands my reasoning. He says he does, but what he says and what he feels conflict all too often."   
The doctor looked over at his clock. "You can leave now, if you'd like, Cassie. I know you want to get home early."   
Cassie glanced over at the clock, it was twenty minutes before she'd usually be getting out but Doctor Greenway was right: she wanted to get home as soon as she could. "Thank you, Doctor." She slipped into her jacket, threw her purse over her shoulder and left the office quickly.   
The doctor thoughtfully took a few notes so he'd have information to look back on at Cassie's next meeting. She was a troubled young woman, one of the more painful cases he had to deal with. It certainly wasn't fair that someone with such a bright future ahead of them was afflicted with such a hard to overcome disability. The others in her group could carry on their lives with some normalcy, but she couldn't, as she never knew when another unconscious memory could hit.

_A/N: Yeah, it's a bit shorter than my other ones, but this _is_ Cassie I was writing about, and we all know how hard it is for me to write (I, personally, think she's lucky to have survived to make it into this series, lol) Anywho, at the rate I'm writing these, Traumatic Events IV should be out before Christmas Eve (Forget having a new fic out ever two weeks, I'm up to every two days!!!)_


End file.
